Archive for August, 2009

When I talk to writing students they say that merging a good character with an interesting plot is one of the hardest parts of writing. I agree. A good character is only really as good as the situations he is written into, the experiences he gets to have, the conflicts he struggles with, and the [...]

By Lee Masterson How do you describe your character’s physical appearance? It’s not always easy to describe your characters without resorting to the cliched “She looked in the mirror and saw…” Likewise, setting the scene for each part of your story is an important element of building your fictional world. In fact, some authors go [...]

Many of us have read stories or books that we have thought are quite dull. They fail to capture our fancy or our imagination. Often, the writers fail because they never truly make us believe their stories are real. We believe things are real when we see them, or touch them, or taste them, or [...]

We begin a new series this week focused on helping out writers. For about twelve years I have been writing, teaching, and editing and over the course of those years I have picked up a few things that I know will be beneficial. What follows is not the book on writing short stories, but I [...]

If I say the word cheerleader, you probably have an instant reaction. Maybe it is good, maybe it is bad. But that word, cheerleader, seems to bring forth a response in everyone. For me, it has always had a negative connotation. In part, it was because I never really considered cheerleading a sport. As a [...]